Audits released Monday by the Louisiana Legislative Auditor's office point to problems in 2011-12 at several New Orleans charter schools. A Lusher employee embezzled $25,000, Miller-McCoy has two potential ethics violations and Lagniappe Academies failed to conduct criminal background checks on some employees. Lusher received a "D" grade, which is not a letter grade but an indicator of fraud or abuse. The other two schools were graded "C" for control or compliance issues, meaning processes weren't in place to catch errors or abuse. Reports with a "D" grade may include control/compliance problems as well. The reports cover the fiscal year ending June 30, 2012.

The Lusher audit, conducted by Bourgeois Bennett, found that "a high-ranking employee in the Business Office" forged signatures on five checks to pay herself $25,000. Established internal procedures uncovered the theft in January 2012. The employee returned the money and the school has since increased its safeguards.

A police report dated Jan. 25, 2012 identified the employee as Lauren Hightower. The Lens first reported on this audit in December.

"I'm really pleased that we caught it as soon as we did. I feel like we have good procedures in place," said school leader Kathy Riedlinger.

Follow-up on the criminal side appears to be incomplete. The police report says Det. Michael Riley was going to obtain an arrest warrant for Hightower. However, NOPD spokesman Frank Robertson said Tuesday that no warrant has been issued.

Riedlinger said the school was still interested in pursuing a case, has cooperated fully with the police and has called Riley repeatedly to check on the status to no avail. "The detective keeps telling us he'll get back to us," she said.

In addition, Lusher did not keep all its accounts reconciled throughout the year, did not fully account for some grant transactions and lagged on requesting grant reimbursement from the Orleans Parish School Board. Again, the school has since improved its controls, according to the report.

The audit of Lagniappe Academies in Treme, conducted by Carr Riggs & Ingram, uncovered missing criminal background checks for several employees. Ninh Tran, Lagniappe's Director of Operations, said the school submitted fingerprints to the state in Nov. 2011. About 3 months later, the state returned the batch because some prints were unclear, and informed Lagniappe that there was a new online process for conducting background checks.

The school resubmitted the fingerprints but the background checks apparently never went through, Tran said, noting that he was not the employee in charge of the process at the time. The five missing background checks -- three from 2011-12, two from this school year -- will be completed by the end of January 2013.

Furthermore, the audit found delays in reconciling accounts and recording transactions. Lagniappe is in the middle of hiring new business and office managers, Tran said.

The LaPorte firm's audit of Miller-McCoy Academy, an all-boys high school in eastern New Orleans, found two issues that may run afoul of state ethics laws. The first was a contract with a vendor that may violate a law prohibiting public servants from benefiting from contracts. That contract was not approved by the charter's board, which has since passed a resolution requiring it to approve all contracts no matter how small, according to the report.

The school also employed two siblings of one of the co-principals. Both those leaders, Tiffany Hardrick and Keith Sanders, left unexpectedly last summer.

School lawyer Lee Reid could not confirm or deny any issues raised in the audit at this time. "However, please be assured that the Board of Directors of Miller-McCoy is aware of their obligations under Louisiana law in connection with these issues," he said in an email.

The auditor's office will submit the Miller-McCoy findings to the Louisiana Board of Ethics, which will then decide whether to investigate, said Joy Irwin, LLA Director of Local Government Services.

Three additional school audits came out Monday. Sophie B. Wright Charter School in Uptown received a C. Its accounting process was "significantly delayed" due to several changes in the budget director position and staff sometimes entered transactions incorrectly, resulting in inaccuracies. The report, written by accountants Silva Gurtner & Abney, says the school has since staffed up the finance department.

The ReNEW charter management organization and the International School of Louisiana had clean audits with no problems.

Every charter school and district must conduct an audit annually and submit the results to the state. Schools pay for the audits themselves.